Macworld 2010: David Pogue hosts the keynote

The official ceremonies of Macworld 2010 started off this morning with David Pogue's keynote "Late Night with David Pogue" (which started at 9am -- "it's a joke," he explained in his usual corny way). He began by talking directly about the missing elephant in the room: "I have four words for you: 'Steve Jobs isn't here.'"

After a few jokes about how Macworld could now say anything they wanted to about Apple behind its back (digs at the hockey puck and AT&T service got cheers from the crowd), Pogue dived into a song parody with a backup band that included Paul Kent and a few other Mac luminaries, and then sat down at a talk show desk where he waxed technical about Twitter, and shared tidbits from his book.

From there David rolled out his first surprise: The Autotune the News folks! They sat on the couch and after showing the audience some of their videos, talked with David about how they do what they do. "We bought a green bed sheet that wasn't very comfortable, so we hung it on the wall." The rest is history. As a special treat, they made a brief (and we mean under 10 seconds) clip of an autotuned Steve Jobs discussing the iPad. It was cute but oh, so short.

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Next, Dave discussed an article he wrote for Macworld Magazine long ago that was a take-off on the Jimmy Stewart movie, "It's A Wonderful Life," in which Steve Jobs is given a glimpse of what the world would be like if he had never founded Apple. In fact, he wrote a brief play based on the article that the group performed, with surprise guest LeVar Burton as Steve Jobs, complete with black T-shirt and jeans.

The performance was quite funny (see our photos in the gallery below), and David and LeVar wrapped up the keynote with a sit-down interview. LeVar talked about the visor he wore on Star Trek: The Next Generation ("I hated it with a passion") and how Reading Rainbow, his landmark television series, will soon be back with new episodes on the Internet "...sometime in the 3rd quarter."

No, the show wasn't dripping with the reality-distorting unicorn tears that Steve typically distributes at these events, but it was a lot of fun, well-received and a strong sign that Macworld 2010 has arrived.